


Things Will End Before They Start

by easiIyamused



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Trans Character, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Trans Peter Nureyev, it's about the LESBIANS, it's about the found family, it's about the uhauling, peter and vespa are jewish <3, sometimes, sort of Vespa POV but like third person you know what i mean!!, this is gonna be a long one ladies buckle up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 18,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25676353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easiIyamused/pseuds/easiIyamused
Summary: So there's literally no way that two sets of prolific thieves operating in the Outer Rim around the same time weren't at least the tiniest bit aware of each other, right? So what if someone took that concept, ran with it and turned it into an AU where Buddy and Vespa accidentally became a young Peter Nureyev's Godmothers? That would be nice I think.
Relationships: Buddy Aurinko/Vespa
Comments: 31
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS please read!!
> 
> -in the first chapters, Peter is a small child who has not come out and is referred to by his deadname!  
> -mentions of war and mass murder and displacement and general mistreatment of Brahmans by the Guardian Angel System  
> -vespa's god awful piece of shit father is mentioned a couple of times  
> -warning for descriptions of child neglect (physical and emotional), and one mention of physical abuse  
> -mag is complicated but that does not excuse the fact that he lies to and emotionally manipulates a child!!

Vespa’s not yet 30, but she already feels a little old for warehouse parties. Raving and party drugs pale in comparison to the rush of pulling off a good heist or waking up with Buddy. Simple things. She’s actually vaguely disgusted by the scene on Vishnu these days, the excess and ridiculousness of it all. It’s pretentious to say that they’ve outgrown it, that they’re onto bigger and better things, but that’s exactly how she feels. She doesn’t need drugs and loud music, doesn’t need to block it all out, just needs to be exactly when she is now, holding Buddy’s hand as they walk out of a Shivan floating gas station, on their way back to the ship. Loved and loving. Bulletproof. 

She’s aware of someone saying her name, of a squeeze to her fingers. She blinks hard and looks over at Buddy with an apologetic noise.

“It’s nothing, love, it can wait. I’ll leave you to your ruminations.” Buddy’s smiling as she speaks, a little lopsided and very sweet. Vespa pulls her a little closer, leans their foreheads together. 

“Not ruminating, just thinkin’. What was it?” 

“Mag’s invited us to a party at his. Tomorrow evening.”

“Mag? On Brahma?” Buddy nods,

“I thought we might as well, seeing as we’re nearby?” 

“Ugh, I dunno, Bud. I’m getting too old for that shit.” Vespa groans. Her girlfriend pulls away from her in mock horror, 

“You’re twenty-nine! It’ll be perfectly civilized, I’m sure.” 

“Brahma’s such a shithole…”

“...but we like Mag!” Vespa goes to argue, but Buddy cuts her off, “-Even if he is rather an odd duck.”

...

They met Mag the first time they went to Brahma. The Angels had just wiped out the best part of an entire city, and Buddy and Vespa had gone planetside to offer help to the Doctors Across Galaxies. 

The devastation was like nothing else. Piles of bodies, some more complete than others, buildings with creepily sharp cylinders burnt through them, barely staying upright. Most of the people Vespa treated had very mild injuries- shrapnel or stampede wounds. If there was something to say for the Guardian Angel System, it was that its error margin was virtually nonexistent. 

It was the psychological toll that was the worst to behold. People who had been holding their lovers one second and clutching at ash the next. Disoriented children who, once treated, ran straight back into the streets. No one to monitor them, no one giving them a second glance. Vespa’s stomach felt like someone was pummelling it. Thank god she had something to do with her hands. 

Once everyone in their medical tent was patched up and the sun had set, Buddy and Vespa were hurried through a manhole and into an expansive bunker. Curfew was strict, another medic explained to Vespa as they walked, and they were more than welcome at the resistance meeting. Some resistance, Vespa thought as she looked around. There were barely fifty adults assembled, a few white-coated doctors and medics alongside people who looked like they might have been bourgeois intellectuals once upon a time- all tatty tweed jackets and grown-out center-parted hair. A few glassy-eyed children slept or sat eerily still in corners. The ‘resistance’ arranged themselves on the floor like grade-schoolers in a ‘sharing circle’ and someone stood up to call the meeting to order. 

Vespa bumped her leg through the first round of speeches, exchanging secret looks and taps with Buddy to indicate who they thought knew what they were talking about. 

The last speaker was probably in his late thirties, broad-shouldered, growing the beginnings of a mustache and beard. He was dressed in the style of the ex-intellectuals, but there was something that set him apart. Maybe the duster he wore, maybe that he was just a little more unkempt than the others, maybe the fire in his eyes as he began to speak about the day’s events. He was personable, sort of warm, and half-smiling, but behind the bravado and jokes, Vespa could see a spark. Fury in his eyes, precision in his plans for change. It made Vespa like him a whole lot more than any of the pricks talking about the ‘theory of totalitarianism’ in the wake of so much death. Buddy must have agreed, because she squeezed Vespa’s arm gently and gave a little nod. 

Once the formal meeting had adjourned, Buddy made a beeline to the final speaker, Vespa following suit. He turned to face them and smiled, one of those wide-eyed smiles that make it hard not to like someone. His voice was loud and warm as it had been when he was up and speaking,  
“Ladies! I am absolutely delighted to meet you both,” he held both hands out for them to shake as if it was a perfectly normal thing to do, “I hope you won’t be put off if I say I’m a fan of your work?” Buddy and Vespa exchanged a look,

“Our- work?” Vespa asked, raising an eyebrow,

“The Ransacking of Riva B? That was you, wasn’t it? Or was that a different Vespa and Buddy?” 

They were a little blindsided. It was the first time anyone had recognized them from a heist. 

Buddy was first to gather her thoughts, because of course she was. She gave her usual easy smile and took his head,  
“You’re exactly right! It’s always nice to meet a fan. We were quite the fans of your speech, actually, weren’t we Vespa dear?” Vespa nodded and shook his hand without speaking. Buddy continued, “now, Mister-?”

“-Mag. Just Mag is fine.” 

“Mag, I’m intrigued to know how you have time to watch crime streams in a place like Brahma!” Mag smiled, equally unfazed,

“I could say the same about you two. How do you have time to do charity work in this cesspit? I can’t say I’d bother if I were in your position.” 

Vespa bristled a little. She never wanted to have the kind of success that came at the expense of morals. She cleared her throat,  
“I- uh- grew up on Rangia, so we have an- interest? In all the Outer Rim planets. And I’m a medic, so-“, She shrugged, “we thought we might as well help.”

“How- altruistic of you,” Mag said, with a look so even that she couldn't tell whether he was genuinely impressed or not. “In my glory days I rarely thought beyond my own wallet, I’m ashamed to say.” That made their ears prick up,

“You’re a thief?” Buddy asked, leaning forward a little. They had been floating the idea of assembling a team at some point, collecting names of people to call on. Always good to have a network. 

“Was, more like. Not much left to steal, these days.” Mag said with a small, rueful smile. “It was a side job, a sort of teenage habit I never broke. Like these!”, He pulled a packet of old fashioned paper cigarettes out of his duster, “want one?” Buddy took one. Vespa shook her head. Mag continued, “but yes, the only things I steal anymore are identity cards and ration packs, sadly.” Buddy laughed sympathetically, clapped him on the shoulder. 

“Well, we’d love to hear some of your stories! Isn’t that right, dear?” Vespa considered the rest of the rooms. There was no one else worth talking to. She nodded. 

...

“I guess we do like Mag...” 

“We do! And we can get dressed up, and have drinks-“ 

“-and then go home, and get-“

“Vespa!” Buddy swats her hands away, a pantomime of irritation. “Are we going or not?”  
“I’ll go, I’ll go. But you’re not making me go clubbing afterwards, I’m serious.” Buddy loops her arms around Vespa’s shoulders, bats her eyes, smiles one of those private, sweet smiles that are just for her, 

“Would I ever?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> previous content warnings apply to entire fic! 
> 
> on brahma, family finds YOU

The house is gigantic, one of the few remaining mansions outside the valley that was left when New Kinshasa rose. Vespa scuffs her boots along the drive as she asks, “You sure this is the address?”

“Positive, darling. Let’s just hope that he’s somehow done insanely well for himself in the past three years!”, Buddy smiles airly, hopping across the gravel in her heels like it’s nothing. The vast front door has been left ajar, and light and music are pouring out. Vespa shrugs and follows Buddy inside. 

It’s not really a party, Vespa’s relieved to realize. More of a gathering. She recognizes a few faces from that bunker all those years ago, milling around staring at the fancy decor or engaged in political discourse. There are new people, too, and everyone’s armed. Hopefully, that has to do with the Angels, and not some plan Vespa and Buddy haven’t been let in on. Vespa already wants to leave, for the two of them to be alone on the ship again, but she keeps going. 

They finally spot Mag, a little less skinny and more grey and bearded than when they last saw him, chatting with two men by a fireplace. He spots them and excuses himself, then comes striding over, his big brown eyes glinting in the light from a chandelier above them.   
“Ladies! You made it!” He’s beside himself. Maybe he’s a little drunk, Vespa thinks. He shakes their hands, and when he slings an arm around Vespa’s shoulders she can smell liquor. Maybe more than a little. 

“The fuck is this house, Mag? You been laundering creds out of Kinshasa or something?” She asks, doing her best to sound more despairing than delighted. He snorts with laughter, pulls away from her,

“Well, you’ll love this, I’ve decided to go completely off the beaten path, and now I work for the Angels! Killing in the name! So I can afford this place. Great, right?” 

The smiles fall from Buddy and Vespa’s faces so quickly it almost registers sonically. Mag holds his hands out in defense, “I’m joking, girls! Really, you have so little faith in me?” Vespa shakes her head at him. Buddy rolls her eyes, but doesn’t look too mad as she speaks,

“What’s the real deal then, darling? Do let us know.”

“Not anywhere near as exciting. The family deserted the place after someone shot their precious puppy, so we decided to move in while they’re away. Like housesitting-“ His train of thought is interrupted by new people entering the room, and he rushes off before Vespa can ask who ‘we’ is, calling “drinks in the kitchen!” Back at them as he bolts away. 

The kitchen is equally fancy, all invisible cupboards and floating decanters. Vespa snoops around in the cabinets while Buddy fixes them negronis, scoping out the ornate linens and funny-shaped forks. She’s weirdly drawn to the sink, which is one of those ones that’s not really a sink, just a tap on a marble surface that somehow does the same job, and to the cupboard below it. She crouches down, pulls open the little door, and is greeted by various fancy detergents- but nothing she’s not seen before. Nothing that she’d steal for Buddy, who loves all those weird scents like ‘lapsang sunset’. 

She’s about to stand again when one of the dishcloths starts to move. 

Vespa rubs her eyes briefly and looks again. It’s still moving. So are some sponges. Like there’s something underneath them. “Buddy-“  
She’s next to Vespa in a moment, looking in at the animated cleaning products. Buddy pulls the door open a little wider, letting some more light in. 

In the shadows of the cupboard, shrouded in a few dishcloths and tea towels, is a tiny, sleeping child. Their hair is black and long, but for several sections which look like someone’s hacked at them with a knife, and their eyes are screwed shut. A cobweb floats back and forth just beside their nose as they breathe. It’s a peaceful, if unsettling, scene. 

Buddy and Vespa exchange a panicked look. Buddy shuts the door as gently as she possibly can, then turns to her girlfriend and whispers, “Well, dear? What’s the plan?”

“Why are you asking me?!”

“Because I haven’t the foggiest idea of what to do!”

“You’re the one with all the siblings! Work your magic!”

“I know, but- We should ask Mag.” The clarity has returned to Buddy’s eyes. It’s amazing, how she does that, Vespa thinks as they jog back into the living room. 

Mag’s still mingling, growing increasingly wobbly on his feet. Buddy pushes through and touches him gently on the shoulder, “Can we have a word? In private?”

“Are you still mad at me? It was a stupid joke, I-”

“-Not mad, just interested. Do hurry up.”

They make it to the doorway of the kitchen, then Vespa turns around to face him, crossing her arms, “Care to explain why the fuck there’s an infant under your sink, Mag?” She hisses. He blinks a few times, a little caught out,  
“An- oh! You mean Zofie? Have you two not met her? Oh, you’ll love her, hang on-” Mag stumbles over to the sink, beckoning them to follow him. He throws open the door and there’s a flurry of sound as various products are abruptly thrown out of place. The child practically rolls out, open-eyed and dazed. 

Mag rolls his eyes. “Zofka, what were you doing in there? For what are you so strange? Beds are for sleeping in, remember?” The girl doesn’t respond, just reaches her arms out, Vespa assumes, to be picked up. Mag clicks his teeth, “Not right now, bubula, too shaky. Why don’t you say hi to our guests, huh?” He gestures toward Buddy and Vespa, looks over at them and whispers, “Could one of you-? I don’t wanna drop her…” 

The guests in question share another worried look. Vespa all but jostles Buddy forward, mumbling again about her lack of siblings and experience. Buddy sighs and scoops the girl up and onto her hip. The colour drains from the child’s face but she doesn’t make a sound, just gazes over at Mag and reaches out a skinny little hand. Mag shakes his head and points at Buddy, “It’s okay, it’s okay, she’s our friend, don’t look so worried. All alright, yeah?” The girl gives a tiny, unconvinced nod. Buddy is rocking her slightly, giving her a big warm smile,

“Hey, sweetie. What’s your name, then?” The child looks between Buddy and Vespa. Vespa attempts a similarly confidence-giving smile, which must pale in comparison, but it must do the job because the kid finally opens her mouth,

“Zofia Petrova Nuriyeva.”

She has one of the thickest accents Vespa’s ever heard. It reminds her of the people who would come to trade with Dad, but higher, more lisp-y. And her name. Vespa had a name like that once, long and incorporating her father’s name, but she shed it years ago. When she got free.

“What a lovely name!” Buddy smiles, swinging her from side to side, and the child grins. All of her teeth are missing but for a sharp canine on the bottom row and a single front tooth at the top. Buddy goes for the business pitch, “Now, Zofia, shall we find you somewhere cozy to sleep? It’s pretty late.” The girl looks confused.

“Oh- she- her solar is a little-” Mag stumbles over his words. Vespa wants to stomp on his feet. Actually, if the kid is his responsibility and he’s gotten this drunk, she’s going to stomp on his feet, and a few other things besides- She pauses the fantasy briefly, makes eye contact with the girl and asks Buddy’s question again, in the traditional Outer Rim dialect, the one she grew up speaking bits of on Rangia. Zofia’s face lights up,

“Yes!"

The nursery they find on the third floor is beautiful, painted dusty pink. Zofia sticks out like a sore thumb with her scrappy haircut and worn-out tunic. Buddy puts her down into the bed, Vespa standing a little ways away in what she thinks is a valiant display of support. The girl asks for Mag a few times, but Buddy manages to shush her, strokes her hair until she feels asleep. Vespa’s heart swells so much it’s virtually uncomfortable. 

Just as they’re edging out of the pink room, Mag comes back from vomiting in one of the bathrooms. He looks a little drawn but is walking in a far straighter line than previously.   
“Is she-” He whispers. Buddy nods and moves out of the way of the door. 

Vespa watches as Mag tiptoes over to the bed. She wants to grab him and force the cyanide vial she keeps on her for emergencies down his throat, but stops herself. He’s not going to hurt her, Vespa thinks. He’s not cruel, just stupid. Of course. Mag presses his fingers against his lips, then brushes the same hand gently across the girl’s forehead, all while humming something that reminds Vespa of her childhood, but not in a bad way. 

When he’s done, Mag shuts the door carefully behind him before practically bear-hugging Buddy. “You’re a life-saver, both of you are. Lord knows what she might have got up to in that cupboard!” Buddy peels away from him with a forced smile,

“Quite. How old is she, Mag?”

“Five, six? Small for her age- we’re not entirely sure.” He looks a little sheepish.

“So- adopted? Did you have her solo, or with-”

“-No. No. She’s- not mine, not by any stretch of the imagination.” Vespa had assumed as much. Mag has very little of the old country in him, she thinks. The slang he does use seems almost stilted.

They’re downstairs now, slumped on the couches. Most of the guests have left, so it's primetime for Mag’s story. He clears his throat and speaks,

“I was with the resistance, trying to help out in an area that the Guardians had stripped bare for resources, and I came to this high street that was infested with kids. All orphans, or displaced. It was- I’m sure you can imagine. Anyway, I was supposed to be taking a food parcel to an old doctor who was dying in one of the apartments, minding my own business, and then bam! Suddenly the parcel’s gone and I see this little silhouette out of the corner of my eye. I chased her into an alley and there she was, behind a dumpster. The world’s smallest criminal mastermind! Managed to steal it right out from under my nose! She was even skinnier than she is now, bless her, so I bought her a meal, and then she tagged along to deliver the package. And she’s been tagging along ever since, for the last year and a bit.” There’s something deep in his voice, something that softens Vespa’s resolve to murder him, 

“Happy accident, huh?” She asks, not letting her voice betray any approval.

Mag nods, takes another sip of his water. Buddy kicks off her heels and curls up next to Vespa on the couch, tucks her head into the crook of her girlfriend’s neck, looks over at Mag,

“So, have you been ‘housesitting’ since you found Zofia? I can’t imagine that you’ve exactly gone into accounting to support her.”

“No, no chance of going straight for me, not with my- background- and my work with the resistance.”

“Is that past tense? The work?” Buddy asks. 

“Yeah. I got a little sick of sitting in sharing circles and licking everyone’s wounds for them, I’m sure you understand.” They both make noises of assent. It’s not surprising, really. “I was actually, uh-“ Mag stops himself, which obviously piques their interest.

“What, Mag?” Buddy urges him on. Mag lowers his voice slightly,

“I was thinking about- transferring my skill set into some- action. Something a little more direct than all that airy-fairy stuff, you know?” He’s suddenly serious, all the joviality stripped away. It’s what Vespa liked about him, originally. The drive. She nods, flashes a little smile. 

They talk for hours. The sunrise is blocked by the floating city, but the grandfather clock on the wall tells Vespa that it’s past six in the morning. She’s resting her head in Buddy’s lap, having her hair stroked. It’s so nice that she almost dozes off for a moment, before snapping back to life and weighing in on a few of Mag and Buddy’s talking points with a few post-verbal noises of assent. The place is strewn with bottles and cigarette ends, but Mag tells them not to bother with clear-up. Tells them that he and Zofie will be moving on within the week, so there’s no point.

Right on cue, there’s a noise to Vespa’s left, behind the couch. Buddy turns to face it and jolts, makes a sharp noise of surprise. Vespa sits up as quickly as she can, hand on her blaster, but it’s just Zofia, standing inches from them with bleary eyes. Mag grins apologetically, gets up and ruffles the child’s hair, 

“How’d you get there so fast?” She only shrugs in response. He sighs, but there's a note of pride in his voice when he speaks, “Well, it’s not polite to sneak up on people who don’t deserve it, okay?” Now there’s a nod. She turns to them, smiles that toothless smile,

“Sorry!” The ‘s’ sound is lisped. Vespa feels something deep in her chest shift, something huge and warm. 

“You’re good at that stuff, huh, Zofka?” She asks, affecting a little of the accent she spent so long trying to lose in the hope of making herself easier to understand.

“I’m best at sneaking! And hiding!” The child bounces lightly from foot to foot as she chirps. How she can be that skinny and small but still have so much energy, Vespa has no clue. “And I can read a big page by myself, and do four spins like-” 

She turns around and turns four neat cartwheels, landing across the room with a flourish. Vespa and Buddy applaud appropriately. Mag shakes his head,

“Oy, it’s too early for all that, Zof. Really. So noisy. C’mon, let’s get you some food.” The child goes traipsing into the kitchen. Mag rubs his eyes, stumbles along after her. Vespa hears a cry of “Hey! No knives at the table!” As she gets up to follow. Snorts with laughter. 

They sit at the kitchen table, eating oatmeal. Zofia is too short to reach, even when perched on a pile of books, so she ends up sitting on the surface next to Vespa. She eats like a starving animal. Vespa doesn’t judge. She remembers that sort of hunger, the hunger you can only feel when you’re completely helpless and can’t get food for yourself. She felt it for far too long. She lets the girl have half her banana and most of her tea. Buddy and Mag chat about ancient jazz music, which depresses Vespa, so she turns to the child.

And abruptly remembers that she has no idea how to start a conversation with someone barely out of diapers. Luckily, she doesn’t have to. 

“What’s your name?” Zofia queries. 

“Vespa.” 

“Do you have kids?” 

“No. Maybe one day.” Zofia looks vaguely disappointed. Was Vespa’s tone wrong? She doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing. “Sorry.” The child looks sort of serious, sounds almost world-weary when she speaks,

“I thought maybe we’d be friends. Me and the kids. They could come and play here at the Rich House with me.” She’s poking at the remnants of her food. Vespa wants to tell her to stop, that she’ll get in trouble. But that's a worry from a different life, a different world. 

She focuses her attention back on the melancholy child next to her, clears her throat,  
“Well- uh- we could be your friends, for now? Until the kids come along? How’s that sound?”

“Deal, schlemiel!” Zofia says, in an evocation of Mag’s voice that’s perfect, but for the pitch. Vespa holds her hand up for a high-five, because that seems like something a fun sort of adult would do. She’s not entirely sure.

...

There were no grandparents or aunts or uncles or cousins or siblings when Vespa was growing up. No fun adults, no neighborhood kids. Just her and her father, alone on the farm. The endless slog of get up, change, plow the land, try not to make dad mad, eat, try to get the mud off, fail, walk two miles to the bus stop, sit on the bus for two hours, try to stay awake in school, sit on the bus, walk walk walk, change, dig, walk, eat, wash, try not to make dad mad, fall into a dreamless, insufficient sleep and then rinse and repeat. 

The best days were when they needed to go to town for supplies. Vespa would get to wash her hair and don her town clothes, clean blue slacks and a soft lilac t-shirt. They needed to look presentable to do good trade, Dad said. Vespa was just happy to wear something not saturated in mud and salt. She’d sit shotgun in the pickup truck, perfectly still for the whole journey, not wanting to ruin the day. 

If Dad was in a good mood once the work was done, he’d send her over to the ice cream van while he had a beer in his favorite dive bar. The van was on the riverbank, and there were always children flitting about it. They’d let Vespa join in on their games, provided that she shared her soda. She’d feel normal, for a little while. If Dad was in a bad mood, he’d get blackout drunk at the bar, burn their gas creds on poker games, bat Vespa away if she tried to reason with him. 

After a few rougher incidents, the bartender started taking pity on her. He’d let her sit up on a stool behind the bar until all hours, slyly pass Dad watered-down with a secret wink to Vespa, keep her entertained with bottle flips and crossword puzzles. Whenever they pass through Rangia these days, which is as rare as they can possibly keep it but not unavoidable, Vespa always sticks her head around the door of the bar. She knows that barman left years ago, but on the off-chance that he might be there, she wants to thank him. 

...

Vespa blinks out of her daze when Zofia slaps her hand in a high-five so enthusiastic it stings. She brushes it off, engages the kid in a heated debate about where the best place to hide in a bathroom is. Notices Buddy out of the corner of her eye, ostensibly still chatting with Mag but really just watching Vespa and Zofie shoot the shit, mouth curled into a secret little smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! i hope your day was lovely i have a bonkers headache but that's OKAY!! because i do enjoy writing this.
> 
> does anyone else say deal schlemiel or is that fully just something i made up a child i mean obviously schlemiel is a word but? 
> 
> comments would be LOVELY GAL!


	3. Chapter 3

Two nights before they leave, Mag has some ‘work’ to do in town that he says will go on until early morning. “Normally I’d take her with me,” he explains, stuffing a satchel with files and lockpicks, “but it’s so late and not really fair on her and if you two wouldn’t mind?” He buckles it shut and looks up at Buddy and Vespa expectantly. The two glance at each other quickly. Vespa gives Buddy the ghost of a nod.

“We’d be more than happy to,” Buddy smiles, “if you think she’ll be alright without you?”

“Nah, she loves you girls. She’ll barely notice I’m gone.” 

That turns out to have been an overstatement. Zofia catches Mag walking down the path, gets both arms around his left leg and refuses to let go. Mag tries to twist away, but the child’s face is set in a grim mask of determination and she won’t budge. Vespa watches sheepishly from the doorway, unsure of what to do. Mag’s doing his usual brusque shtick, trying to brush her off. What’s the theory there, Vespa wonders. Does he want to toughen her up? She’s only little. He asks her to stop being difficult, gently but firmly pushes her away. Angles her around so that she’s facing the door. That’s when Vespa sees it. The animal fear in the girl’s eyes, the shaking in her hands. She thinks he’s leaving forever.

Vespa feels weirdly anxious, tries to remind herself that this isn’t about her, tries to think of what Buddy would do. Fixes her face in something that isn’t a smile, to show that she understands the gravity of the situation, but is still even and calm. She holds her arms out, quirks her hands, crouches a little. In seconds she has her arms full with a sobbing child. Vespa shushes her like Buddy would, ruffles her hair.   
“He’s coming back, Zofka. It’ll be okay.” She’s trying to speak softly, but the scratch in her voice is irritatingly ever-present. The girl shakes her head, makes some muffled noises akin to a jumble of ‘sky’ and ‘die’. 

Vespa feels a little sick. She’s not familiar with the stages of development, but she’s pretty sure someone Zofie’s age shouldn’t have such an extensive knowledge of death. But she can’t articulate that, just strokes her hair and whispers, 

“Hey. You n’ me n’ Buddy are gonna hang out here in the Rich House and practice readin’ and watch streams n’ have a great time and then in the morning Mag’ll come back and we’ll have oatmeal for breakfast like normal. How’s that sound?” Zofia nods from where she’s pressing her face against Vespa’s shoulder. Vespa hauls her up, carries her inside. 

Vespa almost jumps when she realizes that Buddy’s been standing just inside the house this whole time. Glares at her over top of the girl’s head. Buddy laughs lightly,

“Don’t look at me like that! You were having a moment!”

“A very stressful moment!” Vespa hisses, hoping that Zofia doesn’t catch the tone, “Could’ve used some support!”

“Oh, please. You had a total handle on it. If you really needed help I would have given it.” Buddy’s gazing at her with all this warmth and adoration. Like she’s proud of her. Vespa feels an acute need to ruin the moment, so she picks up the pace for a second, whispers in Zofia’s ear counts down from three- 

The two of them swing round with matching tongues stuck out and left hands flipping the bird. Zofia is doing a perfect evocation of Vespa’s resting scowl. They manage to hold it for a few seconds before all three of them crack up laughing. Buddy manages to gasp out something chiding about Vespa being a terrible influence through peals of laughter. Vespa rolls her eyes dramatically, throws the kid up in the air a few times until she’s verging on hysteria, and then passes her to Buddy. 

There’s a pretty gigantic damp patch on the shoulder of Vespa’s shirt. Tears and snot, she guesses. She’s suddenly aware of her own face being a little damp too, just below the eyes. How about that. She wipes her eyes and follows the sounds of laughter and chatter into the front room.

It ends up being a really good day. The ‘Rich House’ has endless opportunities for games of hiding and seek and races across the yard. There are thick bushes of little pink flowers lining the backyard, the kind that only grow on planets as exposed to the elements as Brahma and Rangia. Vespa teaches Zofia how to twist off the petals and suck out the nectar, the way she would back when it was a harvest day and she was desperate for water, sugar, anything. It’s nice, she thinks, passing that stuff on. The stuff that makes the shit deal you got in life a little more bearable. 

Vespa ends up sitting shaded by one of the bushes, watching Buddy go all cheer coach on the kid. Her back handspring is flawless with hardly an hour’s rehearsal, but Buddy has to keep reminding her not to land in a fighting stance. They go a few more rounds before Buddy declares that she’s worn out and flops down beside Vespa on the grass. 

“She’s smart,” Buddy remarks as they watch Zofia turn cartwheel after handspring after tuck, throwing in ridiculous flourishes and kicks and punches as she goes, “Picks things up quickly. Very clever kid, that one.”

“Mhm. And she’s gotta' great teacher,” Vespa mumbles, rolling over onto her stomach and pressing up so that she can look at Buddy properly, “When we retire, you can go back to your roots n’ coach the most badass cheer squad ever, huh?” Buddy snorts with laughter.

“What will you do, then?”

“Watch the kids while you’re at meets, I guess. Cook food.” Vespa’s picking at the grass in front of her, pressing it until it dyes her fingertips green. She realizes that Buddy hasn’t said anything and looks up at her. She’s looking over at Zofia, who is about to finish a very clean round off. She lands perfectly with gymnast's hands and looks over at Buddy for approval, which is given in the form of a big smile and a thumbs up. The girl practically glows, starts off practicing again. Buddy sighs. She looks sort of misty. Vespa doesn’t know what she did wrong. “Bud-”

“We’re too young. Aren’t we?”

“Bud, I was just joshin’. Really, it wasn’t- I mean-”

“-so you wouldn’t want to-?”

“No! No,” Vespa scrambles so that she’s sitting up, faces Buddy properly, “Of course I want to. With you. I just mean- I was talking about ages away when we’re like- old. Like forty. Older, even. I don’t know. But I do want to.”

“Oh.” Buddy's quiet and that feels wrong. But she’s not mad? Vespa’s a little confused. But then a smile creeps over Buddy’s face and it’s like the sun’s out again, like the world is warmer and better. “Well, that’s good to know,” She takes Vespa’s hand, presses a kiss to her knuckles, “Extremely good to know, I’d say.” Vespa feels lit up like she always does in moments like this. The sun is beginning to set. The child is engrossed in one of the bushes, practicing her nectar gathering technique. Life feels warmer and better, right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. listen to jackie and wilson by hozier and Think About Them.... that's all i do these days
> 
> 2\. my first day working with children a five year old cried on me and like. i had the tears also. it's a thing. 
> 
> 3\. i've had severe attachment anxiety since i was a tiny little fellow, and i feel like it follows that peter would have something similar going on? so hopefully my years of experience mean that i Write It Good.
> 
> 4\. also, in my heart Buddy was head cheerleader in school and also valedictorian because it was a way of rebelling against her criminal family. like her mom was like 'i can't believe i raised a prep :(((' anyway she ended up being a thief regardless so it's all good 
> 
> 5\. was that incoherent? probably. have a lovely day!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> if i spent my quarantine writing a 10k+ word, dialogue-heavy fic full of found family and tEnDerNess then no i didn't <3

The morning after next, they have to leave. There’s a bank sucking its workers dry on Aisling Prime and they’ve finally got an insider willing to give them floorplans. Mag listens to their plan over coffee, nods, and gives suggestions. Zofie sits despondent in her spot on the table, silently turning her spoon like a switchblade in her little hand. Vespa tries to catch her eye, to make her laugh, but nothing’s forthcoming. The child finishes her food and jumps down from the table, scurries off. All three watch her go. Buddy winces. 

It’s time to go, and she’s been hiding for hours. Mag calls upstairs, taps on cupboard doors, looks under chairs. Buddy and Vespa do the same. There’s a painful tug in Vespa’s chest and she knows Buddy feels it too, from how her eyebrows are knit. Mag opens the door for them, shouts upstairs that “They’re going and you haven’t said g’bye, Zof! Not polite!” They wait for a second, listening. Nothing. 

And then suddenly the air is whacked out of Vespa’s lungs. She twists around to look properly. Zofia’s got one arm halfway around Vespa, the other hand clutching Buddy’s sleeve. Her eyes are red and her face is all blotchy. She makes eye contact with Vespa, croaks out a little “Don’t go,” In their shared language. Holds them there with all the strength she possesses. Buddy scoops her up like she always has, presses their foreheads together and speaks quiet reassurances because she can, because she’s good at it. Ends with a question. Zofia nods in response. Manages a tiny, watery smile. Turns and reaches her arms out to Vespa, who obliges with a half hug, half carry. 

“We’re not going forever, Zofka.” 

“You’ll come back tomorrow?”

“Not tomorrow. We can’t. I’m sorry. But soon.”

“Promise?” Her eyes are wide and red-rimmed. She’s got that ultra-serious, adult look on her face. Vespa feels sick with guilt, but she feels something else too. Something big and warm and devoted. Her chest is thick with love for this strange, spiky, overemotional kid and she knows that she’ll do or say anything to help her, to make her life easier. 

“I promise. When I see you again, your ‘ch’ sound will be perfect, okay? Don’t let Mag forget to practice with you.” The kid nods, throws her arms around Vespa’s neck. After a good moment, Mag pulls the kid off of Vespa, Buddy takes her hand and they walk in the direction of their little craft. When Vespa looks back, Mag and Zofia are waving, shouting something. She cranes her neck to hear,

“Zay gezunt! Zay gezunt!” 

Go well! Go well! Be safe! 

Now there’s something she hasn’t heard in a while. She waves and shouts it back, squeezes Buddy’s hand. Four years ago, Vespa didn’t care about anyone but herself. That is to say, she didn’t know that she was good for anything besides staying alive, didn’t think she had the luxury or time to care. Today, she cares very much about two whole people. Maybe Mag, too. Two and a half people. And that feels good. A little scary, but good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always thanks for reading gals and gays!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is a long one, folks! buckle up!

In the eleven months that follow, they devote at least an hour every week to communications with Brahma. They send postcards and souvenirs from their travels and in return receive a postcard with a propaganda photo of Kinshasa on the front and wobbly writing on the back: _To Friends, thanks for my tee shirt I like it ver e much! It is cold today. I drank a whole cup of cofe! Is it cold in spayce? I saw dancing on a stream it was good. I miss you love from ZPN and M XOXOX !! :) ___

__“Censors?” Vespa asks, flipping the postcard back and forth. Buddy nods,_ _

__“Oh, certainly. They run a tight ship down there. I’m surprised the mention of the weather didn’t get it flagged.” They both pull disparaging faces at the thought. Buddy writes a neat, carefully worded letter back, addresses it to the black market grocery store where Mag gets intel and bullets._ _

__Two weeks later, another postcard. This time there’s a PS: To the two best Godmothers a tiny ‘borrower’ could ask for: thanks so much for the cards. It’s really helped her cope with the bad weather we’ve been having. Come visit soon- call when you’re planetside. And great work on the windows! There’s a little drawing of a black and white bird beside it. Windows, Vespa assumes, is code for their recent heist on Venus. They’d escaped the bank by diving through an eight-foot plate glass window. The video of the moment went viral on almost every stream channel. Vespa dimly hopes that Zofia hasn’t seen it. She doesn’t want her to get ideas._ _

__They land on Kinshasa, so as not to alert suspicion. No one flies directly to Brahma anymore. Everything is green and white here, Vespa notes, as they make their way to the shuttle plane, all lush hanging plants, and huge marble structures. When they land on Brahma, everything is scorched and dry, but for the few bushes that cling on for dear life. At least on Rangia, you could grow things._ _

__As they step off the shuttle, a man docks a hoverkart of huge black bags beside the landing bag. Vespa realises exactly what the bags are holding the second before they all disappear in one clean white laser blast. She feels queasy as the man holds his comms up to the dock, as his comms makes a cha-ching noise. Cash for Cleanup, the kart reads. Vespa shivers involuntarily, takes Buddy’s hand, keeps walking._ _

__The location Mag sent them from an encrypted comms line is deep in the city. They walk past buildings peppered with laser burns, past body after body. Try not to look too hard._ _

__Eventually, they come to a grey block of disused apartments, climb what feels like hundreds of stairs. Buddy knocks out a morse code IT_S_US on the brown door. The peephole cover slides back, then the door is cracked open and they’re almost knocked off balance by how quickly they’re pulled inside._ _

__The interior has been stripped bare, presumably in anticipation of destruction. Two bedrolls and a portable gas cooker are the only things that could be considered decoration. It’s a far cry from the excess of their previous location, Vespa thinks. Mag is unchanged, though, as he kisses them both on the cheek and asks them to sit. They perch on the ground as he boils water for tea._ _

__“Kid’s out getting supplies, don’t worry, she’ll be back soon,” He says, taking a little metal box of leaves out of a hefty rucksack. Vespa takes another look around. What’s left of the wallpaper is peeling with damp._ _

__“No more Rich House, huh?” She asks, though Buddy clicks her teeth chidingly. Mag gives the ghost of a laugh,_ _

__“No, unfortunately. The resistance is planning some God-awful, schmaltzy peaceful protest in Brahma Central next month and I’m assuming the backlash will be… I can’t think of a better word than brutal, actually. So we’ve had to fall off the map a little more, practice cutting ties. Zof’s been great, very stoic, but she’s not the most robust and it’s good to practice these things before shit gets real, if you know what I mean?”_ _

__Before they can answer, there’s a calculated series of knocks on the door. Mag gestures for Vespa to get it and she obliges, checking the peephole first. Sure enough, Zofia is standing on tiptoes, craning to try and look back in through the hole. Her scraggly bangs have grown past her nose, and the tan of six months ago has all but faded into a dull greyness, but her eyes still sparkle with that endless energy._ _

__Vespa cracks the door and is greeted with a screech and a hug that almost knocks the air out of her lungs. She laughs, leans forward to push the door shut, then rests her head on top of Zofia’s, mumbles something in their language along the lines of didn’t I say we’d be back? Didn’t I? The girl nods, then look across the room and screeches again, practically flies over to Buddy. Mag rolls his eyes, grumbles about the noise but can’t quite suppress a little smile._ _

__All four of them sit, drinking black tea and inspecting the contents of Zofia’s little grey rucksack. She’s managed to steal three standard ration boxes, a bag of milk, and a red box of paper cigarettes. At the sight of the smokes, Mag breathes in sharply and then grins, pinches Zofia’s cheek like a grandfather, asks her when she got so smart. She blushes and shrugs, snuggles up to Buddy’s side, and commences the first of several rounds of questioning while Mag examines the packet._ _

__She needs to know where they’ve been, what they saw, if they have photos. They show her a few non-crime related snaps on the screen of Buddy’s comms and she zooms in, presses her face right up to the screen, asks more questions. Her voice has a rasp in it that wasn’t there before, Vespa guesses from the sound that it’s the tail end of a chest infection. Her teeth also haven’t grown in fully, which sets off more alarm bells. The mold on the walls can’t be helping. Vespa tries to push the worry to the back of her mind._ _

__When it gets dark, Mag lights the little stove and heats up the flatbread from the ration packs. They eat and talk, pointedly ignoring the grimness of their current situation. Zofia’s telling a semi-coherent, rambling story about how she lost her toy blaster when a sound like a tree being struck in half by lighting echoes through the building._ _

__Buddy and Vespa jump, but the other two flip into some sort of autopilot procedure. The girl runs to check the locks on the door, then hurtles over to look out the window, where Mag is typing something into a burner comms. The smell of scorched earth floods in through the window, then another smell of something else burning. Something much worse._ _

__The sound of screams from below rings around the room. Buddy starts up as if to move Zofia away from the window, cover her ears, but Mag waves her away. There’s another cracking sound and the screaming ends, as quickly as it began._ _

__The man and his child return to their seats. Zofia’s face is eerily blank, the sparkle in her eyes snuffed. She brings her knees up to her chest and hugs them. Vespa looks over at Buddy. All the colour has drained from her face. It feels a little like a nightmare._ _

__The grim silence is broken by Mag breathing a long sigh of relief, “Okay, okay, right. The network says that the first was an old charge, no one we know, draft-dodging- and the second was for disturbing the peace.” The screaming. Vespa shivers. Mag looks away from his comms, takes the scene in, “Sh- sorry, girls. Was that your first up close and personal GA experience?”_ _

__“Yes, actually,” Buddy says, her voice even as ever, “I can’t say it was particularly enjoyable.” That makes Mag laugh, just a little. Zofia lays her head on Vespa’s lap silently, shuts her eyes. She’s shaking a little. Stoic my ass, Vespa thinks. Terrified, more like._ _

__The cracking noises go on all night, but thankfully at too much of a distance for them to smell that awful burnt flesh odor. Zofia sleeps fitfully while Mag details a few plans he has for the Guardians. Vespa wonders why it was so much easier to believe that this man could crush a totalitarian scheme single-handed in a bunker and a mansion than it is now, in an apartment with a laser raid going on just outside. Maybe then it felt a little distant. Now it’s too real._ _

__

__By four in the morning, even Mag’s crashed out. Vespa’s the only one awake, her back propped up against the wall, not wanting to move and disturb the child. Her eyes have just fallen shut when there’s stirring beneath her. Her eyes snap back open again, in time to meet two little brown ones, shining through the dark._ _

__“Go back to sleep, Zofka,” She whispers, strokes a hand over the girl’s hair, “Nothing fun to do this late, huh?”_ _

__“I can’t sleep. M’not tired.” Zofia’s whispering is masterful already, like the wind through long grass, only audible if you want to hear it. She sits up, leans up against the wall next to Vespa, copies how she’s sitting. Then, another of those liminal whispers, “Vespa?”_ _

__“Mhm?”_ _

__“Did you know my father?” Her father? Vespa thinks for a moment. If Zofia’s middle name is Petrova, then her father’s name must have been something like Petrov or Peter. Vespa doesn’t know anyone with a name like that, hasn’t since she was tiny._ _

__“I don’t think so, no.”_ _

__“Oh. Mag did,” That’s interesting. The way Mag told it, he’d never seen hide nor hair of the child or anyone associated with her until she stole from him the year before last._ _

__Zofia continues, “He was in the ‘sistance, until the bad people in the sky shot him. But, he told Mag about me, before he was dead. And Mag found me, so that’s good," She smiles proudly like she's reciting the lines for a school play, then adds, "And now I can do all the things my father wanted to do, so that’s good too!”_ _

__“That… is good,” Is all Vespa can think to say. All the hair on the back of her neck is standing up._ _

__“I think my father would have liked you and Buddy. I wish you could’ve been friends.” Now there’s a punch to the guts. All Vespa can think to do is wrap the arm that Buddy isn’t slumped against, around the girl and give her a little squeeze before she whispers again,_ _

__“Me too, kiddo. You go t’ sleep now, alright? We’ll talk more in the morning.” Zofia makes an affirmative noise, shuts her eyes again. Vespa stares at the ceiling, blinks hard to make sure that she doesn’t cry on anyone, tries to get some sleep, to figure out what the fuck she’s gonna do._ _

__

__When a shaft of sunlight finally gets through the window, Mag starts packing his bag, muttering something about errands to run. Zofia stirs, opens one eye and looks up at Vespa, who offers what feels like an insufficient smile and a pat on the head. The kid grins and closes her eyes again, looking more contended than someone in her situation really should._ _

__The next hour is a blur. Vespa’s ears are still ringing from the sirens and screaming of last night. Buddy and Zofia go out to buy something non-ration for breakfast. Vespa hangs back drinking tea with Mag, watching out of the little window as Zofia skips to keep up with Buddy, chattering incessantly. She can’t suppress a smile. Mag asks her something and the expression falls from her face when she remembers what she has to do._ _

__“Sorry?”_ _

__“Just wanted to know if you’re doing alright. You look a little peaky if you don’t mind my saying so.” Mag says, all concern and warmth. Don’t try your shtick with me, shithead, Vespa thinks._ _

__“M’fine, Mag, apart from the fact that your planet has a sky that habitually murders folks, m’great. No need for you to parent me,” She grumbles, takes a sip of her tea. Where the hell is Buddy when she needs her? Buddy would be so much better at this. Vespa takes a deep breath and continues, “Speakin’ of which, you never told me you knew Zof’s dad.”_ _

__Does Mag’s composure falter, or is that her imagination? Did she actually get him off guard? Regardless, the concerned facade has disappeared when he speaks,_ _

__“She told you about that?” Vespa nods. She fancies that she can see Mag scrambling for an excuse. He takes a long sip of his tea, “Well. In some ways, yes.”_ _

__“I don’t follow,” Vespa says. She should be more charming, calmer. But she’s not, she’s just herself, “Were y’all bosom buddies or distant cousins- or did you actually know him at all, Mag? Enlighten me.”_ _

__“I’ve got no idea what you’re implying.” His voice is entirely flat now._ _

__“Not implying anything. Just want a straight answer,” She tries an open smile, the kind that says ‘hey, I’m just innocently asking you a normal person question that won’t have any impact whatsoever in whether or not I throw a plasma knife at your gullet’, “That’s all! I just wanna know.”_ _

__Mag rolls his eyes, “Listen, Vespa, sometimes with kids- especially kids as high-strung as Zofie- you have to tell little- not lies, but- you know. To keep them going. What’s the harm in her thinking that her father was a hero?”_ _

__“That it’s a lie? That-” She stops herself before she can finish the sentence before she can mention the radical undertone in what Zofia said to her last night. If she brings Mag’s ideology into it, he’ll throw her out on the spot and they’ll never see him or the child again, Vespa thinks. “-You just shouldn’t lie like that, Mag. It’ll bite you in the ass one day, trust me.”_ _

__Mag opens his mouth to speak again, eyes narrow, but just as he does there’s a knock at the door. Vespa looks him up and down once more, then goes to get it._ _

__

__The rest of the morning is spent eating pastries and drinking coffee and then trekking the distance from the apartments to the shuttleport. There’s no moment for Vespa to tell Buddy what the kid told her, and she feels uneasy. Her eyes keep catching on body bags, ‘clean up’ stations, scorched buildings._ _

__They stop a few blocks from the port, to say goodbye. The kid had been in far better spirits than she was last time, burbling about all the fun stuff they’ll do next time they see each other, but when they do stop her eyes fill with tears and her breathing goes all shaky._ _

__Buddy and Vespa exchange a quick look, then glance at Mag. He’s pointedly not looking in any of their directions. Buddy rolls her eyes and crouches down to Zofia’s level, Vespa following her._ _

__“Now, Zofka, will you listen to me for a moment, really listen?” Buddy asks, hands on the child’s shoulders. She’s given a little nod in response, “I want you to promise us something, darling. Promise to be good, and to take care of yourself. Alright?”_ _

__“I promise.” It’s lisped. _Promith. _Vespa wants to add something good, something inspiring, something that will help. But all she can prevail to do is wrap her arms around the girl at the same time as Buddy, construct a little bubble where it’s just them, safe and sound, even just for a minute.___ _

____She can’t bear to look back after they break apart, when they’re walking away._ _ _ _

____ _ _

____Back on the ship, they set a course for the Milky Way. Vespa sits in the window seat, looking out at the shrinking grey form of Brahma, at the rocky blemish where New Kinshasa ripped itself away from the rest of the planet. Her head aches. Buddy slides down next to her, gently maneuvers so that her chest is pressed to Vespa’s back, asks if she’s okay._ _ _ _

____“M’fine. Just. You know.”_ _ _ _

____ _ _

____“I know. That was... difficult.” She strokes a hand over Vespa’s head as she speaks. Vespa nods. There’s something brewing inside her, something ugly. She wants to lock herself in the bathroom and scream and cry and hit her head against the wall. But she doesn’t do that anymore. She can talk to Buddy. She can. When she does her voice is thick,_ _ _ _

____“Brahma’s no place to grow up on. I mean, Rangia wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but- I didn’t see a dead body until I was fifteen, you know? And that’s not good but- she’s just too young and-”, She gasps for air and keeps going, “it’s just too much, Bud. We can’t- I can’t leave her there, I can’t.” Her heart’s fit to beat out of her chest. Buddy strokes the short bit at the side of her hair, shushes her._ _ _ _

____“I know love, I know.”_ _ _ _

____She doesn’t, Vespa thinks._ _ _ _

____It’s a mean thought, and she never wants to be mean about Buddy, but it’s true. Buddy grew up in a house that looked rather like the ‘Rich House’, on a peacetime planet, with a firm but fair mother and huge, loving family. And yes, they were all thieves, and, yes a few of them tried to kill each other a fair many times, but they were in a safe place. They had each other. Buddy will never really understand how it feels when you’re little and helpless and it’s just you and one less than stable adult scraping by and the world is huge and hateful and you’re at its mercy every single fucking day._ _ _ _

____When Vespa takes a breath it’s labored and hoarse and she hates it, but she presses on, “I just- can’t, Bud. Not with a clear conscience.”_ _ _ _

____“That’s understandable, yes,” Buddy says, strokes her hand over Vespa’s forearm, takes a deep breath in, “But she’s Mag’s daughter-”_ _ _ _

____“-She’s not,” The harshness in Vespa’s voice shocks her. How raw it is. Buddy goes to interrupt her, but she cuts her off, “He wouldn’t, Bud. He cares more about his fucking revolution than he does about keeping her safe.”_ _ _ _

____"Is that fair?" Buddy's voice is even, emotionless. Diplomatic._ _ _ _

____"Yeah, I think so." Vespa's breathing is evening out a little. She starts recounting what Zofia told her, her conversation with Mag._ _ _ _

____Buddy has moved back slightly, is looking out the window, listening, and thinking. Vespa knows she’s out of line. She knows she’s got no right to judge how and where Mag brings the kid up. But her childhood and adolescence were rife with bystanders and she’s not about to be one, not if she can help it. She just hopes that she won’t have to fall out with Buddy over it._ _ _ _

____They sit in silence for a long while, once she’s done talking. Vespa presses her cheek against the cold glass, tries to breathe more evenly. If she shuts her eyes, she can smell burning bodies and see the coldness and devastation. She’s suddenly aware of warm hands on hers, of Buddy pulling her around and forward to face her, of the light in her eyes as she speaks, “So what’s the plan, then?”_ _ _ _

____“Huh?”_ _ _ _

____“We’ve got a few million creds in the bank, we’ll invest in making one of the storage units here on the ship into a bedroom. Until then, I’m sure we can make the couch perfectly nice.”, She’s doing calculations on her comms as she speaks, “How do you feel about boarding school?”_ _ _ _

____“Boarding sch-”_ _ _ _

____“-I know lots of people are wholly opposed to it, but my cousins all adored it, and it’s a good preventative measure if we want to stay in our specific line of work and raise her to be a good sort of person? We could always do one big job and then retire, but I find that those jobs tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies, no? So until then, there’s a school on Calliope that has the most adorable little overall uniforms, and she could come home on weekends-”_ _ _ _

____One train of thought crashes into each other, and Buddy looks up from her comms, face flushed in the way it always gets when she’s excited or taken with some idea. It makes Vespa’s heart hurt. Buddy continues, “But that’s all in the future, I suppose. Right now we just need to figure out how to get her off that planet. Any ideas?”_ _ _ _

____Vespa opens and closes her mouth a few times, like a fish out of water. After a moment she manages to clear her throat,_ _ _ _

____“You’re serious. About this.”_ _ _ _

____“Of course. It is what you want, isn’t it?” Of course, it’s what she wants. It’s what she’s always wanted, deep down. A center, a home. A chance to do things right in a way that Dad couldn’t but she can, because she’s not him. A family. With Buddy._ _ _ _

____“Yeah, yeah it is,” Vespa takes Buddy’s face in her hands, plants a firm kiss to the space between her eyes, manages a smile. “Let’s go get her.”_ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. didn't i tell you it was about the uhauling??? there you go
> 
> 2\. this can now go two ways and im not entirely decided on which to go in lol!! what do you think??? 
> 
> 3\. is mag a complex character with interesting motivations yes is he also a manipulative lying nastyman in many ways yes
> 
> 4\. today i found out that im allergic to raw hazelnuts! i hope your day went better than that!


	6. Chapter 6

It’s a simple enough plan. A very basic heist, actually. Enter the building, attempt negotiations and if all else fails stun and run. It would feel weird and gross to offer Mag creds, but if that’s what they have to do then so be it. Vespa’s hoping that he’ll just let her go quietly, but it’s unlikely. She grits her teeth, reminds herself of Mag’s skewed motives in taking Zofia in, of his silences and brusqueness and failure to shield her from everything that’s awful on their planet. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the right thing to do.

They land just shy of the Brahma shuttle this time, sit as close as they can to the door. Vespa can’t stop tapping her foot, biting her lip, wondering if they should have called ahead. She pushes it all aside, grips Buddy’s hand as they push out of the shuttle and into Brahma Central, towards the housing block.

As they scale the hundreds of grey stairs, Vespa begins to feel a little less anxious. It’ll be alright, she’ll come with them, he’ll listen, they’ll be gone from the Outer Rim entirely by this afternoon. Maybe they’ll never come back. That would be good.

The clack of her boots on the concrete steps brings her back to herself. They’ve reached the apartment. Buddy knocks out the morse code greeting, and they wait. Nothing. She knocks again. Nothing. Calls out to him. Nothing. Fuck this. Vespa kicks at the space where the keyhole is once-twice-three times. There’s a cracking noise, which she takes as a cue to shoulder it open. She barely feels the sting of wood and metal as the door falls open, flopping off its hinges. 

The room is entirely dark, the little window boarded up. The light from the staircase barely seeps in but shows them enough. The stove and the bedrolls are gone. It’s like no one was ever there. 

Vespa’s aware of labored breathing and looks over at Buddy, who’s sweeping the walls for hidden panels. She’s too far away for it to be her breathing, so- Oh. Vespa’s chest is rising and falling too quickly. She presses a hand to her heart, manages to get over the spike, helps Buddy look for doors, clues, anything, but to no avail. 

They clatter back down the stairs, Buddy hammering the screen of her comms, calling Mag far too many times, trying to track him. It goes straight to a beeping noise. Burner comms, Vespa thinks. So easy. 

Out on the street, there’s no point in asking around. They try the places that Zofia talked about earlier- a ‘playground’ that’s really just a bench surrounded by dead grass, an overcrowded market selling huge bags of dates, and distributing ration packs on the side. Nothing. Of course. They’re too good, too proficient at hiding. 

Vespa kicks at the dirt when they get out of the market. Her face feels hot and her eyes are smarting. She jams her toe into the gravel, swears under her breath. There’s a painful twisting in her stomach, a stabbing in her head.

When the pain subsides, they’re back on the ship. Buddy’s looking through Brahman CCTV footage from the past twenty-four hours but to no avail. Vespa’s staring at the couch that they hastily put a pillow, sheet, and light blue blanket on before they left for Brahma earlier. She feels rotten inside, all bile and regret. Stupid, fucking stupid. 

A soft little noise snaps Vespa out of her self flagellating trance. She looks over at the control panel- Buddy’s still sitting upright, but she’s dropped her face into her hands. Like she’s trying to muffle her sobs. Vespa moves across the room as fast as she can, wraps her arms around her girlfriend and all of a sudden she’s crying too and they just stay there for a long while, twisted around each other, united in the grief that gnaws at their insides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it's been almost a month! Yikes! I got all weird and demotivated, but I'm about to upload a bunch of chapters so hopefully that makes up for it?! Anyway, as always comments would be lovely and I hope you had a good day. I forgot to eat and got really dizzy but I'm better now. 
> 
> Also, sorry for going the sad route, but (angst) x (playing fast and loose with canon and timeline) = profit in my heart.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GIGANTIC CONTENT WARNING IN THIS SPECIFIC CHAPTER
> 
> for descriptions of hallucinations, derealisation, gore, and all that bad stuff that Vespa is going through. I love her so much!! Kabert- Vesbud spinoff when? WHEN?

In the years that follow, they do a lot of thinking. And a lot of looking. They have comms alerts for Zofia’s name, for Mag’s name, for Brahma in general. Buddy goes without sleeping for three nights, finding a way into the CCTV in the shuttleport, so that if they ever leave the planet she’ll know. And nothing. Again and again. 

They call up any resistance phone numbers they can get, have seconds of hope when someone says that Mag was just in some forested place, send a tracking drone over to the suggested area- and nothing. Always just out of reach, intangible. 

They pull off heists and rack up creds and they are invincible and on fire and the best at what they do and it feels good, so fucking good. But some nights they come home to their silent apartment above the bar, to an empty spare room painted lilac and it’s cold and they lie face to face, neck-deep in that grief again. But they can hold each other, and that helps.

And then one day they don’t have each other anymore, and it makes everything that much worse.

In the beginning, Vespa gets through it by not thinking, just doing. Walk forward, bandage his leg, take his vitals, prescribe meds. Walk back to your cell. Sleep. Get up. Walk forward, take her vitals, prescribe meds. Don’t make anyone mad. She brushes aside the horrible feeling of being involuntarily thrown back to childhood, goes back into autopilot. Doesn’t think.

Then the drugs stop working like they used to and the hallucinations start in earnest. At first, it’s the feeling of mud on her skin, mud that she can’t wash off no matter how hard she tries, then it’s Dad, screaming and throwing things at all hours of the day, then it’s rats, crawling over her. Then all at once.

The worst ones, though, are the ones of the people she does love. The ones that happen at night, the ones where Buddy opens the door in that careful, confident way that she always does and speaks in her beautiful fucking voice and is right there and then disappears when Vespa goes to touch her. Melts away or spits out blood or is shot by something else not real. Not real. 

She’s working into the night, patching up some piece of shit friend of the man who’s supposed to be her boss. Her father is screaming in her face as she works, rats are scratching at her feet, but she has to ignore them, keeps working. Then she sees something out of the corner of her eye. A little figure, crumpled in the corner, black hair covering her face like something out of a horror stream.

Vespa actually says her name out loud, calls to her, but only the asshole on the cot responds. She gives him a hefty dose of morphine to shut him up, edges over to the corner. “Zofka. Zofia?” Who’s voice is that? It’s raw and low and disgusting. The rats are biting at her toes, but she’s too paralyzed by the horror of what’s in front of her in the corner to cry out. The child rolls over and there’s a laser burn right between her eyes and she is speaking, in her high lisping voice, telling Vespa that it’s her fault, that she abandoned her and now she’s dead and Vespa actually screams for once, covers her ears, falls to the floor with eyes screwed shut. She can still hear it, every single word. 

She’s sobbing when the guards all but throw her back into her room, whimpering apologies to people who aren’t, who couldn’t really be there. But it feels real, too real. She kicks at the metal door until she can’t anymore until her ankle feels like it’s going to snap. She’s too tired to even lift herself onto the cot. Passes out where she’s kneeling. 

Days blend in with each other. She thinks she’s been here for years, but she doesn’t remember. Every moment is tainted by the things she sees, by the splitting feeling in her head, by the way her eyes sting, by the croak of her lungs. 

One evening, after a day of her father and the rats and the mud and the child and the girlfriend all, screeching at once, all hating her, all out to get her, she swipes enough morphine to knock a cow out and injects it all, pulls her scratchy blanket around her and crashes onto her cot.

She has a dream. Not a nightmare, a really good dream. Her first in years.

The dream is about a house with an arched doorway that’s grand but not pretentious, with a tiled hallway and a dark green sitting room with big cosy sofas. A kitchen that someone’s spent hours painting a warm yellow. The garden is vast, with a vegetable patch and thick hedges of pink and orange and purple flowers so no one can see it. There’s a lawn, too, with a blanket laid out on it. Beside the blanket, a child is turning cartwheels and a woman is spotting her, giving tips. It’s sunny and warm and Vespa’s running now, running to see and touch and when her feet hit the grass she stumbles and falls-

And wakes up to a guard and the voices and a cold concrete room. Shitting fucking fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think we're all manifesting a nice house in the country with a cool wife and pretty garden


	8. Chapter 8

The light from the tower is warm and orange, bright enough to shine miles ahead of itself. People cover their faces and curse when it whips around and flashes in their eyes. Not Vespa, though, not right now. Her eyes are wide open and they sting and stream from the light and the feeling but it’s so worth it because this is real. 

This is really Buddy holding Vespa’s face and looking at her like she’s carved from emerald, talking to her softly, crying with the eye that’s not cybernetic and smiling that raw, real, slightly more wrinkled but no less gorgeous smile. 

As they speak, it’s like the years begin to melt away until they are themselves again, or as close to who they were as they can get. At some point they sink down, backs against the lighthouse wall, legs pressed together, clasping hands.

It’s odd talk considering the circumstances, mundane and disjointed; Buddy talks about Jet, how he wants to plant peppers on the bar’s balcony. Vespa tells her how much she’s missed good tea and shitty beer and just doing this, just talking, and then she chokes on her words and presses her face into Buddy’s shoulder and that grief is heavy in the air, but there’s something else, too. Something new and warm. The promise that they won’t have to be apart again anytime soon.

They sit like that for what feels like seconds and years and it’s good, so good until Vespa sees something huddled and bleeding in the corner of her eye. Not real. A shadow must cross her face because Buddy asks if something’s wrong. Vespa shakes her head. She should really just ask, but she knows the answer. Buddy would have told her already if anything positive had come up. Her throat is suddenly all blocked up, it’s all she can do to gesture vaguely with her left hand, a sort of patting motion. 

Buddy gets her meaning, even after all this time. Tells her that she looked and looked and asked around in prison, spent years remotely tracing one lead, but that all it led to was an ex-resistance man who told her that Mag had been dead a long time, and even before that no one had seen the little girl for years. Vespa nods solemnly. She doesn’t have the tears to cry, not after today. The cadaver in her peripheral vision stirs. She screws her eyes shut, squeezes Buddy’s hand. They’re together again. It’s okay. It’s okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the canon reunion invented romance and it's literally impossible for you to change my mind THANKS!


	9. Chapter 9

Vespa does not enjoy Peter Ransom. Not one fucking bit. He’s too tricksy, too bolshy, far too confident for what he is. Maybe she’d like him more if it weren’t for the hallucinations, but she doubts it. She hates his stupid affected accent, how he dresses like something out of an ancient superhero film, how he smirks like he always knows something everyone else doesn’t. He didn’t even flinch when she set his broken leg. What a fucking robot. 

Jet carefully puts it to her one night that it might be helpful for Vespa to feel sorry for him.She tells Jet that she’s not as nice as him, so he can do all the cerebral shit and she’ll stay mad. Jet shrugs and goes back to meditating. Vespa goes back to ranting.

She’s also unnerved by the moments in which Ransom isn’t totally locked down. When he’s drugged up in the medbay, moments after the leg setting, and Steel runs in to check on him, push the hair away from his eyes. Ransom smiles up at him, really smiles, Vespa doubts that you can put on something like that. He has a dimple in his left cheek that doesn’t show when he has his usual crowing smirk on. Vespa shivers, stamps out of the bay without making her excuses. 

Maybe she’s jealous, she thinks that night as she washes down her meds with some tea blend Jet put together. She’s never been able to be anyone but herself. She tried to be when she was small, tried to be what Dad wanted, but it never worked and she’s never bothered since. Imagine being able to pretend yourself into a job you strictly shouldn’t have. Into a world and a life you weren’t born into. Having that confidence. Ugh. 

They go planetside for supplies a few days later, somewhere green and still. Jet wants to go to a botanical garden, and for some infuriating reason Steel and Ransom tag along. Vespa powerwalks, taking about six strides a second to keep up with Jet and stay away from the two assholes holding hands and making eyes at each other in the dust behind them. Jet talks to her about the healing properties of lemon verbena, but all Vespa can hear is wailing. As if her father would ever be caught dead in a botanical garden. Her illness gets zero points for accuracy.

Eventually, they reach a smaller walled area. It’s silent and so pretty that it almost quietens the stuff raging in Vespa’s head for a moment. Big lilac blossoms and purple hyacinths.

Ransom sits down on a little bench to rest. He’s only a few feet from Vespa. She wants to kick him, seriously considers it until she realises what he’s doing. Carefully, making sure not to kill the whole flower, Ransom picks a bud off the bush next to him, twists off the pink blooming bit and drinks the nectar. Something hard and weird stirs in Vespa’s chest, but it’s interrupted by Juno Steel’s profoundly irritating voice calling Ransom a farm boy. Ransom laughs and says something about how being internally displaced and being a farm boy aren’t the same thing, and Vespa tunes back out.

Later she’s back on the ship, filing, and sees a gap in their med records. Pulls out her comms with a grunt.

**VI: why the fuck dont i have ur med recs???**   
_[UNKNOWN]: Oh, my apologies! I think I missed my appointment because of the Zolatonva job? :(_   
**VI: i dont give a hot shit!!! come to the medbay STAT or ill have ur kneecaps**   
_[UKNOWN] : Alright :)_

Even texts like a passive-aggressive asshole. Vespa rolls her eyes and gets her gear ready, prints a background form out. Moments later, Ransom limps inside, perches on the end of the gurney. He knows better than to try and make small talk by now. Vespa glares at him, takes out a pen,

“I’m assuming you’ve got no physical evidence of any previous injuries to give me?”

“Unfortunately not. Most documentation I have is on a burn-after-reading basis.”

“Who are you, SpaceBatman? Jesus. Fine then- family history of physical or mental health conditions?”

“I wouldn’t know. I was adopted.”

“Tell me the truth, Ransom, or one day I’ll give you the wrong meds, you’ll die and I’ll laugh,” Vespa growls. She’s not in the mood for this, just wants to be in bed with her fiance instead of talking to this rookie shitbag.

Said shitbag is looking at her very evenly, arms folded over his stomach as he speaks, “That is the truth. I don’t know who my biological parents were. I understand that you can’t trust me, but I wouldn’t compromise your work by lying about my health.” 

“Sure, right. Ever broken any bones before? Major injuries?”

“I don’t think so?”

“Don’t think- have you ever been to a fuckin' doctor?” He’s silent. Why is he silent. “Seriously?” Vespa asks. 

“No, I have, more recently, but- there were a few times when I was younger when I had aches and pains that didn’t go away for a long time. And- they don’t make them like you where I’m from, doctor.”

The rueful little smile he gives her is almost genuine seeming. Vespa shakes it off, continues scowling at him. She needs more than this. Ransom shifts a little in his chair, “I was rather malnourished? For most of my childhood. Dehydrated, too, I think. And I probably had Varsovian Measles at one point.”

“Probably?! Fuck do you mean, probably?!” 

“Well, it looked like Varsovian Measles, but there were no hospitals. So I just… lay down until I was better.” He shrugs as he speaks. Vespa thinks she’s on the verge of a stroke. 

Varsovian Measles is carried in bad water, bad food, goods that have been tainted by the chemicals used to mass manufacture low budget produce. It preys on children on war-torn or remote planets who don’t have access to vaccines, to healthcare generally. Kills quickly and painfully. When she was ten, Vespa didn’t go to school for three months because of an outbreak. It was a miserable time, scrolling through pictures of kids her age with welts on their faces between shifts on the farm.

“Surprised you don’t have any scarring.” She mumbles as she writes.

“I paid to get rid of it, once I made enough money.” There’s a hint of pride in his voice. Fair play, Vespa supposes.

“Any lung trouble?”

“None. I believe I got off lightly.”

“You should have died. That’s not even me being mean, it’s just a fact…” She runs through the list of lasting issues caused by VM on her touchpad, “Any hearing problems?” 

And he’s quiet again. It’s like there are cogs moving behind his eyes. Like he’s weighing up what it’ll cost him to be honest. He looks her in the eyes and Vespa suddenly realises that they’re the same cold brown tone as hers, but doesn’t have too much time to think about it because then Ransom is lifting his left to his ear, pressing his index finger to the back of it. When he holds it out to her there is a golden chip the size of a fingernail resting on the pad of his finger.

Vespa’s uncomfortable. Maybe she prefers it when he isn’t being truthful and she can blindly hate him. He makes no move to speak, so she clears her throat as he puts the chip back in its place.

“Uh- is that an Ebisu Gold?” Vespa asks. 

Ransom nods, “When I was eleven, after the measles, it was like someone pulled my ear out of my head. My fa- someone I knew helped me sell my hair and- some other things, to afford it. It’s a remarkable little machine really, I’ve never lost it in over two decades.” 

“And if you did? If it got knocked out or broken?”

“I think it would be... like when you get punched in the face and the world spins. But all the time.” His voice is quieter than she’s ever heard it. 

Vespa nods, scribbles on her sheet. “I’ll allocate some of the medical budget for backups. Keep them in the first aid pack. Also, you seriously need to watch your hydration, if you had problems with it before the measles. Less coffee, more water, alright? I’ll be checking. And I want more blood samples tomorrow, to check for hypertension. You gotta be careful, Ransom, those side-effects aren’t a fuckin’ joke.” 

He nods and nods and nods like a waving cat statue as she speaks, bites his lip. Is he trying to get sympathy? Doesn’t seem like his game. Then it dawns on her.   
“Listen, asshole. If I wanted to get you, which I frequently do, I’d fight fair, not use somethin’ like that against you, alright?” 

That makes him smile, not the real one she saw before, but getting there. “Thank you, Vespa.”

“Yeah, whatever. I still have to put it on file, so that Jet and Buddy know how to help you if I’m not there.”

“I understand, but-”

“-It’s a family, man. Everyone gets to know your bullshit, whether you like it or not. Now piss off, I wanna spend my evening with my almost-wife, not your lanky ass.” He pushes himself up off the bench, looking a little thrown off. 

“Goodnight, Doctor. Sleep well.” What’s with that softness in his face? There’s something familiar to it, something she can’t place. Before she can ask where the fuck he’s from, he’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter heavily inspired by 'say it louder' by onetiredboy, who only writes HITS i must say. also inspired by the fact that i grew up with a HoH parent. varsouvian measles inspired by measles mumps rubella and meningitis, some of which lead to sensorineural hearing loss. healthcare is not a privilege and i know if you're reading this you probably think so too but it bears repeating.


	10. Chapter 10

Vespa is restless all night, even with the heavy medication she’s on for her sleep. Buddy holds her and shushes her, but it’s no good because the corpse is in the corner and the rats are at the door and when she sleeps for minutes at a time she dreams of the dead child and nowhere is safe.

They end up sitting up with all the lights on at four in the morning, cross-legged in a mess of sheets and duvets, talking quietly. Vespa draws shapes on Buddy’s thigh with her index finger, hearts and stars, and little galaxies. She wonders when she became this kind of person. Sappy and doting. Not that she minds. It calms her jumbled, addled brain, the contact.

Buddy puts her glass down very gently like she’s trying not to startle Vespa. “I forgot- I found some old photos, while you were out. Would you like to see?” Vespa makes an affirmative sound and sort of drapes herself around Buddy’s shoulders while her girlfriend swipes at the pad. “There’s this one-” Of them both at about thirty, fresh-faced and with shining eyes, on a rooftop bar on Jupiter. Vespa’s hair is pink in it, spiked up. Before she settled on acid green. 

Buddy zooms in on their faces and laughs under her breath, “Honestly, I don’t know how you could stand to be seen with me! Look at that eyeliner!” It’s a little wonky on the left, sure, but still lovely. Vespa rolls her eyes and presses a kiss to Buddy’s temple,

“Y’look beautiful, Bud. You always do.” Buddy rolls her eyes, but permits the kisses and the sweet talk, loops her free arm around Vespa’s waist, keeps scrolling. 

There are a few more pictures from parties, one of Jet and Buddy in the good old days, posing on the hood of the Ruby7 like excited new homeowners. Then Buddy swipes at the screen again and the smiles slip from their faces at double time. 

It’s a clear image, taken from across a busy street. It’s easy to tell that it’s Brahma from the loose brown dirt on the ground and the dried flowers hung on the buildings. There’s a huge wanted poster with their faces on it affixed to a concrete building, and pointing up at it is Zofia. She’s standing on one leg to try to reach the edge of the poster, mouth open like she’s shouting for Mag to come and look. Vespa can almost hear it, smiles despite herself.   
“Nice. Bad influences, we were.” Buddy gives the ghost of a laugh, nods. Her face is obscured by her hair. She scrolls to the left and makes a little choked sound. 

It’s from the second time they visited, the time in the apartment. When Vespa was showing her pictures and then she wanted to take her own. All three of them, squished together, pulling various stupid faces. There are about thirty of them because Zofka was spamming the shutter. They look through all of them. In the last snap, they’re all smiling properly, mid-laugh. 

Buddy takes a shaky breath in, “I printed this one out, after- you know. I tried to take it into Balder, but they confiscated it,” she brushes her thumb over Zofia’s face on the screen, whispers, “baby. Our baby. She’d be almost forty, you know.” Ancient grief gnaws at Vespa’s insides. She tries not to look at the picture, eases the comms out of Buddy’s hands, clicks it off. Pulls this woman she loves, who she’s going to marry, who she almost had a family with, down to rest on her chest. Kisses her forehead, like that will make up for everything they’ve lost. 

They’re silent for a long moment until Buddy whispers again,  
“It would have been good.”

“Yeah, Bud.”, Vespa’s stroking her hair, taking deep breaths, “would’ve made us a helluva lot less stupid, too.” Buddy nods. Her face is all wet. Vespa wants to hold her forever, hold her together, and keep her safe and happy. She hears her father in the room, screaming that she can’t, can’t do anything right. She flips her stupid bastard Dad off over her fiancé’s head, even if she still believes him a little. Shuts her eyes and finally sleeps. 

Vespa jolts awake two hours later in a cold sweat, throws herself out of bed, grabs Buddy’s comms, and opens it back up. Zooms in on Zofka’s little face. Cool, dark eyes. A dimple in the left cheek. Vespa’s heart is going to beat out of her chest in a second. She scrambles for her own comms, can’t find it, must be in the medbay. Where the fuck are her pants? She makes enough noise patting around for them that Buddy stirs, sits up, “Vespa? Did something happen, love?” 

She doesn’t have the words to respond, pulls her cargo shorts on, crashes out of their cabin with a yelp of   
“Everythin’s fine! Just need to- back soon!”

The strip lights of the medbay flicker to life and Vespa surges forward, almost drops her comms in the rush to get it open. She’s only got one picture of Ransom, taken, not without resistance, the day he arrived on the Carte Blanche. Head on, unsmiling, flash bouncing off the lower parts of his glasses. Vespa expands the screen, opens an editing window, drags the images so they're side by side. Subtract glasses and makeup, add thirty years, minor cosmetic surgery, and a healthy dose of testosterone and- yeah. Yeah. Shit. She screenshots the comparison image and bolts back to her cabin.

Buddy’s sitting up, rubbing her good eye. Vespa crashes down next to her, takes a deep breath, “Listen. Don’t get your hopes up- but I just thought- look-” She all but shoves the screen in Buddy’s face. Her girlfriend blinks one, twice, squints a little, then turns to Vespa,

“Do you really-?” Her voice is all croaky, from sleep or from shock. Vespa nods,

“It sort of tracks? He said somethin’ about growing up without hospitals, and there’s been- moments-”

“-I know. Me, too.” Buddy interjects. Good. Good, it’s not all in her head. 

They sit for a moment, staring at the screen, at the child and the man. Vespa’s aware that she’s shaking slightly, but she thinks it’s warranted. Then they look at each other. Buddy clears her throat,  
“Well, I suppose there’s only one way to find out, hm?”

“He won’t tell us outright, he’ll be all- slippery- about it.” Vespa rolls her eyes as she speaks.

“I know, but we have ways and means. I’ve always thought you have excellent persuasive skills, love when you try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let's go, gals and gays!! it's crunch time!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we have a juno cameo in this chapter so that's very spicy and fun !!

Vespa doesn’t knock so much as kick at the door of Juno Steel’s cabin. She knows that Ra- whoever this man who maybe used to be Zofia Nuriyeva is- won’t be in the room he was assigned. God forbid he ever do what he’s told. She kicks the door again, hears mumbling and then footsteps behind it. She can feel her heart in her throat. It slides open.

Ransom’s glasses are crooked, his hair a little mussed and pajamas crumpled, but he still holds himself like he’s just walked into some kind of white party. Steel’s behind him, more overtly a mess as per usual. “What’s up, Vespa? Somebody die? We’re tryna’ sleep in here!”, He grumbles. Insufferable.

“Wasn’t looking for you, dickhead. Captain and I need to speak to Ransom, now.” She grunts, eyes fixed on the wall behind them, because it’s too difficult to look at Ransom and too infuriating to look at Steel. 

“At six in the morning?” Juno asks, arms crossed over his chest. Ransom hasn’t moved, is staring at Vespa with one eyebrow raised.

Vespa’s got no time for this, “Yeah, at six in the fuckin’ morning! Haul ass, Ransom, c’mon,” she almost grabs his arm to pull him, but then Steel’s in the space between them, in the fucking way and Vespa just wants to throw him out a porthole, “Shove off, Steel!”

“He’s not going anywhere until you tell us what’s going on. Family, remember?” Oh, that’s rich. Vespa steps forward, gets up in his face, and is about to go fully apeshit on him when she feels ridiculously gentle fingertips on her shoulder.

“It’s fine, Juno. I think that if I were- in trouble, as you’d put it, our dear doctor wouldn’t have bothered to knock.” Ransom drawls, softly pushing Juno back inside with his free hand and then tapping him on the lips with that easy, condescending smile, “Back soon.” 

They walk in silence down the hallway, Ransom lagging behind. Good. Vespa can’t look at him, not until she knows what’s true. It’s too much to hope for, really. Maybe she and Buddy have both finally lost it. At least they’ve lost it together. That’s a sweet thought. So sweet that she almost clear walks past the medbay door. Reels back, stumbles in, sits down on one side of the desk, next to Buddy. 

“Good morning, darling. Did you sleep well?” Buddy asks Ransom, her voice quieter than usual. Vespa wants to take her hand, squeeze it, but they have to be all business right now.

“Quite, thank you.” Vespa has to look at him now, he’s right opposite her. Without six pounds of makeup and fancy clothes, it’s a thousand times easier to see. The quirk of the lips, the faded freckles. She keeps getting flashes of the child, running and laughing and smiling. Of the endless curiosity. The talent for hiding. It tracks, it all tracks.

“Um- ladies? Is this a bad time?” Vespa blinks rapidly, suddenly aware that she and Buddy have been staring at Ransom for perhaps a good minute and a half. He’s shifting around in his seat and wow, if Vespa had known that the way to make him lose his cool is to tell him to sit still and be looked at for longer than a few seconds, she would have won a fair few more arguments in the last year. 

“Sorry, Pete, sorry. I know it’s early, but-” Buddy rubs at her eye, “-but we have some rather- personal questions to ask you.” Something subtle but final descends over the man’s face. His eyes are still, his body likewise. Hackles up, Vespa thinks. 

He makes no move to speak, so Buddy goes on, some schpiel about how they won’t pry because it’s important to him, but they need to patch some gaps in his records blah blah blah. All bullshit, of course, all a means to an end. As she speaks, Ransom draws his knees up to his chest and leans his head on them in a way that’s so like Zofka that Vespa thinks she might have a conniption if she doesn’t say anything. It builds and builds in her throat until she can’t take it any longer.

“What was your dad’s name?” She asks, her voice thick with worry. Buddy, cut off, looks around at her. Ransom narrows his eyes,

“I told you, I was adopted.” 

“Not him, idiot! The man who adopted you, who raised you, your dad!”

“Frankly, I don’t see how that’s any of your business, _doctor_.”, Ransom all but hisses. He sounds like Mag, Vespa thinks. She wants to grab his shoulders and shake him until he tells the fucking truth- but then she thinks of something better.

“Vas iz geven zeyn namen?”

“Mag.” Ransom blurts out, then claps his hand over his mouth. 

Buddy’s shoulders sag. Vespa leans forward involuntarily, head in her hands. The man in front of them, maybe-Peter-definitely-not-Ransom, is bumping his good leg. Vespa is suddenly gripped with the worry that he’ll make a break for it, disappear into an air vent in a puff of smoke. She sits back up, takes Buddy’s hand, gestures with her head. _Go on._ Buddy takes a deep breath and begins the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that one post on tumblr that's like 'the girls are FIGHTING!! <3 :))))' whenever juno and vespa get at each other? that's me. i love it.


	12. Chapter 12

It’s seven o’clock when Buddy finishes. They show photos, cards, everything they kept in a shoebox under the bed at the bar in case he showed up one day. He stays perfectly still and silent the whole time, head still on his knees, hugging himself. Now they’re looking at him expectantly, but he’s looking at the ground. 

“He told me I made it all up”, Ransom’s voice is so quiet and wobbly that it makes Vespa shiver, “He told me I was- that I was always lying. He used to bring it up to embarrass me. And then, then I started forgetting and I couldn’t remember what was real and what I had made up, so he just told me.”

“Sounds like Mag.”, Vespa grunts. Piece of shit. She should have killed him when she had the chance. Her tone must not be quite harsh enough, though, because Peter’s face falls.

“Oh- God. He was your friend, both of you, I-” He looks a little green. Buddy goes to reach over, to take his hand, but he reels away, “stopit- I killed him. He was facing away from me and I stabbed him and he died- I’m so sorry-” It’s like all the air’s left his lungs. 

A new look for Peter Ransom, this vulnerability, but not for the person Vespa used to know. For that child, panic attacks were always just the ‘click’ of a door away. Thing is, she knew how to deal with the kid. Scoop up, stroke hair, make jokes, and give hugs. It was second nature. This man, though. How the fuck does she deal with him?

Thankfully, Buddy has it covered. She hops out of her chair, takes both of his shaky hands, speaks in the softest, kindest voice. “Darling. Will you listen to me? Just for a second?” The man nods vaguely but doesn’t look at her. “Pete- I don’t know what to call you right now. I know what you were called before, but it doesn’t really fit with your- haircut, hm?” He makes a wet little laughing sound, shakes his head. Buddy continues, “of course, it’s okay if you’d like to stick with-”

“-Peter Nureyev.” 

Oh. Right. Nice, Vespa thinks.

Buddy smiles. “Lovely. Nice to meet you, Peter Nureyev. Now, hear me. Mag was our friend, yes, but he was also a complicated, duplicitous person.”

“So am I.” Peter mumbles.

“Quite, but we didn’t find any record of manipulating children into acts of terrorism in the nameless thief files. Unless you’re a better hacker than Rita, which seems unlikely.” He laughs properly, and Vespa might be embellishing but she thinks she hears the ghost of that lisping giggle that used to haunt her dreams and nightmares.

Meanwhile, Buddy squeezes Peter’s hands, “You were given an impossible choice, Pete, one that no one, let alone a child, should have to make. And you chose what was right, not what he tried to brainwash you into doing. That puts you as far away from our shitlist as humanly possible, right, Vespa?”

“Damn straight. Dads suck. Killing him was baller-” 

“-is one way to put it.” Buddy says with a nervous smile, flashing Vespa a capital ‘L’ Look. Peter breathes out slowly, the colour returning to his face. Vespa feels like something is lifting off her. 

The three of them end up using the medbay kettle to make tea, so as not to disturb anyone on their way to the kitchen. Peter sits on the cot, Vespa atop the desk, Buddy still in her chair. Vespa doesn’t even complain about the abuse of her medical equipment.

Peter fidgets with the mug in his hands, “So you were going to- adopt me?”

“Kidnap would be more accurate, but yes, that was the general idea”, Buddy nods, “We- painted a room at our old place lilac, just in case.”

“Lilac was my favorite.”

“We know.” Vespa snaps, but with no malice behind it. She can’t help snapping, these days, even at people she cares about. 

Peter nods slowly, “This is- a lot to- is process the word?” He’s looking over at Buddy, who grins.

“Certainly is. Someone’s been doing those emotional vocabulary worksheets I set!” It’s cute, how genuinely pleased she is at that. Vespa loves her.

“What can I say? I like to be prepared.” Peter grins, and that statement would be far too Ransom-y for Vespa, if it weren't for the fact that he’s turned beet red at the approval.

“You’re right, Pete, it’s a lot. Maybe we could reconvene later today? After naps and caffeine?” Peter gives her a thumbs up. Vespa does the same at the same time, without meaning to. Buddy looks stunned for a second, then blinks hard, like she’s surprised that they’re both there. “Wonderful. I’ll see you shortly, then, Peter Nureyev.” 

“Til then, Captain.” He smiles.

Buddy’s good eye has gone all misty. She reaches up, quickly pulls Peter’s head down so she can kiss the top of his hair, then sweeps out of the medbay. Vespa’s not offended. It would be too much if Buddy started sobbing. 

They’re left sitting opposite each other, two out of place outer rim bastard children, far from home. He looks dazed, right now, staring into the middle distance. Like he’s just realised the enormity of what’s happened. Vespa knows that feeling, wants to help.

“Hey. Petya Sorokavich?” She asks. His eyes snap around to her. She wonders how long it’s been since someone called him that. The best part of two decades, probably.

“Vespa Ivanova?” He retorts with a playful kind of smile. It would send shivers up her spine, that name, if anyone else was saying it.

“Sorry it took so long. For us to find you.” She says, in their language. The warmth in her voice is usually reserved for Buddy, but she can make an exception. 

He’s silent for a long moment, looking her in the eyes. Then he answers in Solar,  
“It’s alright. Probably for the best, really. I don’t play well with others, you must have noticed.” Vespa screws up her nose and shrugs,

“Eh, I used to think that, too. About me. But uh- people need people, and-” It catches in her throat, but she pushes on, “-and we wanted to be- you know.” 

“I think I do, yes.” He’s smiling at her gently, without artifice.

“Cool. Good.” She stammers, then makes pantomime of putting the kettle away so that he’ll start leaving. She wishes she was warm and nurturing like Buddy, not all spiky and broken. Wishes that she could bring herself to hug him, to even just smile at him. Buddy’s voice in her head tells her that she’s good just the way she is, that she doesn’t need to rush. So smart. 

Peter’s halfway out the door. She calls after him, “Two glasses of water before you have any coffee, okay?”

“Okay, _mame!_ ” Asshole, Vespa thinks, but still cracks a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've literally had this scene in my mind for two months so it felt good to write it!! just clocked that this fic is just slow burn found family and i love that for us. 
> 
> i keep forgetting to mention that i have a tumblr @krautsalats if anyone would like to follow and/or talk about HC and stuff?? okay thanks bye!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> luv it's the boiler room episode!! like you know the ones on tv shows where two characters are stuck somewhere for a period of time and they ~bond~?? yeah <3
> 
> this is probably one of the last chapters coz the narrative has run its course lol
> 
> cw for a brief mention of cruelty to animals

It’s mostly little things that change, at first. The photo of them in the apartment is framed and put up in the rec room, in between the one of Rita and Juno the day they opened their agency and the one of Juno’s brother. Vespa spends a whole twenty minutes trying to be civil with Steel, which is much more than she’d usually give him. Peter stops excusing himself from game and movie nights after the mandatory hour, hangs around a little longer, joins in a little more. Some nights he comes and sits in the chair in the corner of Buddy and Vespa’s cabin, and they talk a little or read in silence. Just for a half hour. But apart from that, nothing much changes.

One night, most of the crew goes planetside for intel, which isn’t out of the ordinary. What is odd is that the planet has no commslink. They’ll be out of contact for twelve hours. Peter and Vespa, given the task of holding the fort, watch from the control room as the Ruby7 disappears onto the orange planet’s surface. 

Vespa catches the reflection of Peter’s face in the glass of the motion sensor screen. He’s biting his lip, so hard it might start bleeding if he’s not careful. Oh. Shit. That’s familiar. He turns to leave the room. Vespa takes a deep breath,  
“Petya?” She wonders if he hates it, the informality, the sickly, cozy feeling of having a nickname. Oh well. He looks around at her,

“Yes?”

“I-uh-” Vespa’s tripping over her words. She can do this, “-I guess- there’s no point in us freakin’ out in different rooms, huh?” He tilts his head to one side, opens and closes his mouth, then lowers himself into the chair next to her.

“I suppose not, no.” 

They try to watch a stream together on Peter’s comms, but neither of them can focus properly. Vespa twitches and looks over her shoulder. Peter fiddles with the knife he keeps strapped under his right sleeve, cracks his knuckles, flexes his healing foot. Neither has the foggiest idea of what’s happening in the show. After fifteen minutes of discomfort, she gives him a look and he clicks it off. 

“Fuck do we do now?” She asks, in their language. 

“I’ve no idea. We have… eleven hours and forty-five minutes to go.” His accent is a little ropey, he doesn’t roll his ‘ch’s properly. His hands are twitching with anxiety. Vespa has an idea. 

“Did he ever practice with you?” She thinks it’s probably best not to use Mag’s name. Peter nods,

“He tried, sometimes. Wasn’t his first language.”

“No. I remember.” She can’t mask the bitterness in her voice. 

“Is it bad? My accent?” Peter asks. He’s turned to look at her, face illuminated in pink and purple by the lights of the control panel. Something twinges in Vespa’s heart. 

“Not bad. Mine’s not perfect either. We’re just out of practice, I guess.” He nods in response and they’re quiet for a long moment. Ugh. Why’s it so hard to talk? She rallies and offers, “We could… practice now? If you like?” Peter grins, and that’s all the response she needs.

So they spend the next few hours doing conversation practice, pointing at objects in the room and naming them in both languages, counting to a hundred like little kids in school. Peter makes an attempt at the word for rhubarb and fucks it up so spectacularly that Vespa can’t stop herself from going into hysterics. He glares at her, but there’s no real anger behind it. 

After a while he’s speaking much more fluently, difficult words slipping out more easily. Vespa thinks a lot of it was probably nerves, but doesn’t say so. It’s not a lesson anymore so much as random chat, she realises. She tells him about the ‘pet’ lamb she had as a kid, how her Dad named it Stupidass, how she got into trouble for bringing it to school and how she came home the next night to find out he’d shot the poor little thing. Peter laughs, but gently, in a way that says ‘that’s funny but in a horrible sad way, but I’m not gonna try and make you have a deep conversation about it’. Vespa’s grateful. 

“Did you like it? School?” He asks. 

“I liked not being at home, I guess. Liked the free lunch and science classes”, Vespa shrugs. Peter hums understandingly. He’s leaned his chair back, so he’s more lying than sitting. Vespa clears her throat, “Did you ever go?”

“No, not for any meaningful amount of time. Three weeks was the maximum, I was undercover.”

“How old?”

“Thirteen.” So matter-of-fact, the way he speaks about all that stuff. Vespa supposes she must do the same thing. Peter continues, “The only class I listened in was history, but I didn’t understand much of it.” Something at the back of Vespa’s brain lights up, she sits up in her chair.

“Course you didn’t, man! You never had the lecture we all got when we were seven. Right, listen, there were-”

“-Vespa, with all due respect, I do know a little bit of Outer Rim history now that I’m nearly-”

“-yeah yeah yeah, with all due respect shut up and listen, dipshit!” She flicks his temple with her index finger. He cowers away in mock terror, makes a performance of sitting up and listening very keenly. Vespa takes a deep breath, casts her mind back to being seven in a classroom with the lights dimmed, feeling oddly safe and held as the teacher softly told the story of how their home came to be.

“There were four small planets, separate but together, spinning in the furthest reaches of the galaxy where nobody ever bothered to go. Four planets, named after places and deities in an old terran country. And their names were...” She makes a ‘go on’ gesture at Peter with her left hand,

“Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and Rangia”, He sing-songs, rolling his eyes.

“Will you stop being fuckin' rude and enjoy my story? Anyway, yeah, those four planets were cold and lonely, but they all had something special about them, things that people who swept past them never saw. Rangia had fertile ground full of salt, Vishnu had some of the cleanest air ever recorded, so clean you could put it in ventilators and breathe new life into people, Shiva had this vast sea full of fish that never ran out-”

“-what about Brahma?”

“I’m getting to that, Jesus! Brahma had the most beautiful countryside, natural dirt roads, and green grass. Anyway, those planets sat dormant for eons, even while the rest of space was gradually overtaken by humans. Until one day, four sisters took their children and the language they’d grown up speaking, that everyone on their home planet had almost forgotten, and set out to look for a new place to live. And they found those planets and each of them settled on one and made it beautiful and then more and more people came and after a good long while the four planets were densely populated and prosperous and blah blah blah chicken egg there you fuckin’ go!” 

She’s obliged with a tiny round of applause from the chair opposite her, rolls her eyes at him, then does a double-take. Peter’s pulled the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands and tucked them under his face, and he’s blinking slowly, as if his eyelids are getting heavy. She’s struck by how private this feels, how a month ago he wouldn’t have dreamt of getting sleepy in front of anyone but himself.

“Peter?”

“Mhm?”

“You don’t have to- if you wanna sleep you can go to your cabin, I won’t be offended.”

“No, I’m fine. It’s nice, sitting here.” _It’s nice sitting here with you._ Vespa’s eyes sting. She nods solemnly. Peter continues, in a voice so small that she wonders if he knows he's speaking aloud, “If I’m alone I’ll get… ill. I always do, when people go away.” He’s slurring his words slightly, he’s so tired.

“I know, Petya. Go t’sleep.” Even Vespa is shocked by how soft her voice is. Her stomach twists. She watches this man who was almost her son fall asleep and dimly realises that if anyone tried to wake him, she’d gut them like a fish. 

They’re both jolted awake two hours later by a red bleeping on the control panel. Vespa presses a few buttons and a big smiley face flashes on the status screen. They sigh and sink back into their chairs in unison. All’s well. That gives them two hours until the rest of the team gets back. 

Peter stands up and yawns, stretches. His hoodie is navy blue and says ‘HCPD ACADEMY’ on the front and ‘Super Steel’ on the back. Vespa makes a performance of gagging after she reads the back. Peter pouts at her, “Be nice! He’s my girlfriend!”

“He’s a bitch baby, is what he is. Buddy’s cousin Kwame has a fuckin’ wonderful son your age, top of his class at Vishnu Law-”

“-Juno was top of his graduating class at the academy-”

“-Oy, so what?!”

“I think you’re being unnecessarily stubborn about hating him, and it’s hindering your personal development. And Buddy agrees with me.”

“Well, _I_ think you’re both traitors and dead to me.” She deadpans, crossing her arms. They manage ten seconds of sustained ‘angry’ eye contact before they break up laughing. Peter slides back down into his chair, pulls a nail file out of his trouser pocket. Vespa holds her left hand out without thinking, “Do your worst, they’re a fucking mess.” Peter raises an eyebrow for a moment, then shrugs, takes her hand, and starts working. He’s careful, never catching the file on the skin, gently shaping her bitten, brittle nails into something more socially acceptable.

“I do wish you’d give Juno a chance”, Peter mumbles as he works. His voice is low with concentration, so low that Vespa almost doesn’t catch the afterthought, “He’s a good person, one of the best people I’ve ever known.”

“I know, I’m tryin’. I just- it’s tough for me, second chances.”

“I got one, though, didn’t I?” Peter asks, looking up at her briefly with a tiny, proud smile on his lips.

“That’s different, you know it is.”

“Still. You can do it.” He takes her other hand, starts filing. Her left fingertips are all tingly. Peter takes a deep breath, “I did. And now I’m happier than I ever thought I could be.” His face is slack with fondness, his eyes far away. It reminds Vespa a little of herself, twenty years ago. Lovesick, like a lost puppy. Then something hits her,

“Hang on- why’d you need to give him a second chance, anyway?” The file stills. Peter is pointedly not making eye contact with her, “Petya?” Nothing. “C’mon, you’re freakin’ me out.” Still nothing. “Fine, I’ll ask him when he gets back.”

“Don’t do that!”

“Then tell me!”

“Promise not to get angry?”

“Swear on my dad’s life.” A question crosses Peter’s face, but he thinks the better of it and starts the story.

The rec room clears pretty quickly after family meeting, everyone’s tired after twelve hours of hypervigilance. Goodnights are murmured and cabin doors click shut. Juno’s cleaning his blaster, which flew out of his hand and into some pretty grim alien sludgy stuff earlier, humming to himself.

Something moves freakishly quickly in the corner of his good eye, and he spins around in his chair. Vespa’s silhouetted in the dim light from the kitchen, arms crossed, scowling at him. Juno opens his mouth to speak, but she raises a finger and he closes it again.

“Listen up, Steel. I’m gonna’ talk fast, and you’re gonna need to follow along very carefully. Okay?” She hisses, almost whispers. 

“I guess?” 

“Fuckin’ wonderful. Right. Here’s the thing. Pete’s told me that you were on a ‘journey of spiritual and emotional healing’ and you were too caught up in your own bullshit to realise you were inflictin’ it on other people. And that he forgives you. Fine, great. I get it. Happens to the best of us, by which I mean me, n’ Buddy. But not often. ‘Cause she’s pretty perfect, and I’m doin’ a lot of therapy.” Juno nods at that, like ‘of course.’ 

Vespa continues, “Okay. Good. Now, that bein’ said: you ever hurt him like that again and I’ll be using your large intestine as a jump rope. On your grave. Am I making myself clear?” 

“Crystal,” Juno whispers in return, “But-uh- He’s not wrong. I don’t act like that anymore. That doesn’t make it okay, but-”

“-No, it doesn’t. And I get it, you’ve changed. Great. But I think you need to hear it, still.” She shrugs, “I just- he’s very fuckin’ special and you need to be very fuckin' careful with him.”

“Well, m’glad we can agree on something.” He says, with a tiny attempt at a smile. She continues scowling to get the point across, but nods.

“Good. Excellent. We’re on the same page. See you around-” She goes to stamp out of the room, but is stopped by a hand on her wrist. Juno’s staring up at her, with this solemn look that’s unusual for him.

“Vespa- I mean it. I’m gonna’ do right by him, this time. You don’t need to worry. But like- I get it, if you do anyway.” His voice is all hushed. It's not so easy to hate him, right now. “And uh- I’m glad that you both love him, too.” Oh. He loves him. Right. Shit. Cool. Something twitches in her throat, but she bites it back, makes a vague affirmative noise, mutters a ‘night’, and clears the area.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMAGINE still being able to speak one of your family's languages fluently. couldn't be me :(((((( also. shovel talk is an immaculate trope?
> 
> i wish we still did author's notes like we did in the 'my immortal' days. can you imagine? the serve??? 
> 
> follow my tumblr @krautsalats if u like. it's a cesspool. you could request a fic if you like? i don't know. i want to get better at writing!

**Author's Note:**

> hello lgbt community! keep reading! lots of love! comments would be nice! aren't these lesbians FANTASTIC?!


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